Archives: Staffs
Vicky Bowyer
Vicky has a background in health research, data management, and clinical service operations. She has worked as a research and programme manager on multiple studies and large-scale trials spanning cancer screening, clinical genetics, health behaviour change, and service delivery.
Vicky joined the department in 2021 to continue setting up and to run the CSS Biobank. Working closely with teams within and outside the department, Vicky oversees the CSS Biobank operations, study delivery, governance, and participant engagement. Vicky also supports new projects in the department, including delivering the Twins MR Imaging Study.
Samira Said
Loredana Trandafir
Sarah Berry
Dr Sarah Berry’s research interests relate to the influence of dietary components on markers of cardiovascular disease risk, with a particular focus on:
– Precision nutrition
– Postprandial metabolism
– Food and fat structure
Since commencing her research career at King’s in 2000, she has been the academic leader for more than 30 human nutrition studies in cardio-metabolic health. Sarah has made a leading contribution to the knowledge-base on the influence of interesterification of triacylglycerols on postprandial metabolism. Her research also focuses on the influence of manipulation of food structure and subsequent effects on lipid and carbohydrate bioaccessibility and changes in postprandial metabolism.
Ongoing research involves human and mechanistic studies to elucidate how markers of cardiometabolic health can be modulated following acute and chronic intakes of different fatty acids and interesterified fats, as well as studies to investigate the influence of cell wall integrity on macronutrient and micronutrient release from different plant-based foods.
Sarah is also the lead nutritional scientist on the PREDICT programme, assessing the genetic, metabolic, metagenomic, and meal-dependent effects on metabolic responses to food in >3,000 individuals in the UK and US. This research is at the forefront of developments in personalised nutrition and is forging a new way forward in the design and implementation of large-scale remote nutrition research studies integrating novel technologies, citizen science and AI.
Professor Claire Steves
Claire is Professor of Ageing and Health, Clinical Director of TwinsUK, and Head of Department (Twin Research & Genetic Epidemiology) King’s College London. She is also a Consultant Geriatrician at Guys and St Thomas’s NHS Foundation Trust.
Claire is interested in how each one of us ages differently and uses population studies like TwinsUK to understand what underlies this variability. She works across health boundaries, interested in both physical and mental health and the intersections between them. She established that environmental factors are particularly important in understanding trajectories of ageing. This has led to focused work on the relationship between the microbiome and conditions of ageing, including cognitive ageing, frailty and multi-morbidity. Claire also leads a high profile Wellcome Longitudinal Population Study grant to expand our ability to contribute to health sciences, by using data linkage with health, educational and environmental records, and social and environmental scientists.
In 2020 she brought her clinical experience to the design of the Zoe Covid study app which reached over 4 million people, and since then has led research on the impact of COVID-19 infection itself and the pandemic overall on lived experience of the participants. Claire also is the longitudinal population study lead on the National Core Study of Health and Wellbeing, which aims to understand the health, social and economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic including how the pandemic has affected older populations.
Claire has published more than 100 research articles in high impact journals and appears regularly in the media.
Emma Duncan
Prof Emma Duncan is Professor of Clinical Endocrinology, King’s College London, and Honorary Consultant Physician at Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust.
Since her undergraduate days, she has been fascinated by endocrinology and the skeleton. Her research spans the genetics of many endocrine disorders, from common variant to rare monogenic diseases, publishing multiple high-impact papers interrogating the genetics of osteoporosis and skeletal dysplasias, MODY [maturity-onset diabetes of the young], and phaeochromocytomas and paragangliomas. Prof Duncan’s practical experience in gene mapping includes genetic epidemiology, linkage, genome-wide association studies, and massively parallel sequencing (MPS) technologies; and she has played a pioneering role in the translation of genetic technologies (such as high-throughput microarray genotyping and massively parallel sequencing) into clinical practice.
Prof Duncan has also published multiple clinical research papers in bone and other endocrine disorders. Recently, she has contributed to COVID-19 research, particularly COVID-19 in children; and she co-leads the KCL COVID Symptom Study Biobank with particular focus on interrogating the genetics of the post-COVID syndrome.
Prof Duncan practises medicine as a consultant physician and specialist in endocrinology, with special interest in bone and neuroendocrine disease. She contributes to leadership and governance nationally and internationally, previously serving as President of the Australian and New Zealand Bone and Mineral Society, and currently serving as Councillor for the American Society for Bone and Mineral Research and Associate Editor of the Journal for Bone and Mineral Research and Endocrine Reviews.
